Spring brown bear hunting season ended May 31 with two males harvested, putting Haines on track for a fall bear hunt, provided the town avoids a repeat of last summer.
In 2020, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) documented 49 human-caused brown bear deaths including animals hunted legally, those shot in defense of life or property (DLPs) and those hit by cars. The majority were DLPs. The department estimates the deaths accounted for 16-20% of the total brown bear population in the Haines-Skagway game management unit.
In response, ADFG reduced the bear harvest limit in 2021 to help regrow the population. The new limit is five with an additional allowance of two DLP kills. Any DLPs beyond the two-bear limit count toward the harvest limit. If at any point two female bears are killed, the department will close the hunt. The old harvest limit was 16.
“We’re pretty happy that hunters targeted only males, which is what we requested. That worked out well,” ADFG biologist Carl Koch said. “We had one DLP in early May which happened to be a male.”
Koch said the department requires brown bear permit holders to watch a video about the characteristics that distinguish male and female bears. It’s typically easier to distinguish the two in the spring, before the bears have a chance to bulk up.
The two bears harvested during the hunt were taken by nonresident hunters on trips organized by professional hunting guide Larry Benda.
Two bears harvested during the spring season is pretty standard, according to Koch, who estimates the number typically ranges from two to four.
Fall harvest numbers tend to be higher, ranging from six to eight, Koch said. If the department follows its new harvest limit, the hunt will be shut down well before hunters reach this number. Under the new harvest limit, as many as three more bears could be hunted this year, as long as no more than one DLP occurs over the summer and no more than two female bears are taken under any circumstances.
Fish and Game’s new brown bear harvest limit drew criticism from some local hunters over the winter who said it unfairly penalizes hunters for Haines’ inability to properly secure bear attractants.
“So far, things are going okay,” said Benda, who told ADFG in March that the new limit would effectively shut down his hunting business. In a June 4 interview, Benda said though the year is going better than expected, he’s still concerned about the fall.
“I’m living now with the worry that if someone kills two females, or if they’re run over by a car, or they die for any reason, then (Fish and Game) will shut down the season, and I still have three brown bear hunts planned for the fall,” Benda said. “I just hope and pray we will not have the same issue with brown bears as in past years.”
Five bear hunts a year—two in the spring and three in the fall—represent a huge portion of his annual income, Benda said. He also guides a few mountain goat hunting trips a year.
Last spring, Benda’s season was shut down after the state stopped issuing bear hunting permits to out-of-state residents, Benda’s clientele, due to the pandemic. He estimates the closure cost him roughly $35,000.
“If they shut me down this fall, I will lose even more. It’s a big, big, big dent,” Benda said.
Bear sightings in town have started to ramp up in recent weeks. Last year, the first DLP occurred mid-June.
Koch said it’s impossible to predict how this year will go in terms of DLPs. Last year’s spike in human-bear interactions may have been driven, at least in part, by scarcity of natural food sources like salmon and berries.
The department increased efforts this spring to educate residents about securing bear attractants in the hopes of preventing a repeat of last summer, Koch said.
Later this summer, ADFG is kicking off a multi-year study of the brown bear population in the Haines-Skagway area, hoping to arrive at a more precise population estimate, and answer questions like whether Haines and Skagway share the same bear population. Koch said results from the study are expected in late 2023 or early 2024.